Gaming & Culture —

At EVE Fanfest, players celebrate a different world

A tourist's perspective on a devoted gathering.

Jon Lander, the executive producer of CCP Games’ EVE Online, tells me this during an interview on the first proper day of the company’s Fanfest 2013 event in Reykjavik, Iceland last month. He doesn’t seem to mean much by it and at the time I took it as a throwaway comment. We were in the midst of a larger conversation about monetization and his company’s business practices.

However, after three days surrounded by developers and EVE devotees, I came to understand this as the foundational idea and central thesis of the game. All human interaction—be it face-to-face, in an online forum, or expressed through a series of intricate systems and delicate game mechanics—has value.

By the end of the event the mantra that the world of EVE Online is every bit as real as the physical world has been repeated during every panel, every roundtable discussion, and every keynote. The speakers’ tropes become a running joke for media and PR reps alike: “single-shard universe,” “emergent gameplay,” “player-driven narrative,” “sandbox." But the impact behind these ideas is self-evident in the faces of 1,500 people from around the world who flew to Iceland for a week to congregate, talk shop, and party.

CCP Games' decision to house the American media corps in the Centerhotel Plaza at the base of Austurstraeti seems like a tactical choice to make this year’s Fanfest Pub Crawl as accessible as possible. Austurstraeti is the main street in Reykjavik’s shopping and night life district, which makes for easy traveling. The Harpa, Reykjavik’s newly-constructed concert hall and convention center, is nearby as well.

Behind the hotel lie the parts of Reykjavik that more closely resemble where its 200,000 citizens live and work every day. Small shops and houses with exposed beams sit along narrow, one-way, cobblestone roads connected by an intricate network of alleys, cut-throughs, short cuts, gardens, parks, and courtyards. Wandering around I see people in their offices working, someone hanging art in a gallery, and a woman baking bread. In this neighborhood I feel less like a tourist and more like a voyeur.

That feeling stays with me for the rest of Fanfest, especially when I watch two EVE players get married at the end of the first day or when the artist running CCP’s ad hoc tattoo parlor tells me that at least 50 people have gotten the Guristas logo permanently etched into their skin. I have to conduct an online search to find out that the Guristas are a prominent group of NPC pirates in EVE Online, prowling the game’s lawless hinterlands for easy marks.

Later, during the EVE Online keynote, the 1,500 people packed into the Eldborg auditorium lost their collective minds over the news that the game’s upcoming expansion, Odyssey, would move ice mining from belts to anomalies. A few seconds later changes to ore and moon mining were announced. Senior producer Andie Nordgren (also known as CCP Seagull) told the audience that they would soon be able to launch seven probes at once instead of the paltry three they’d suffered with until now. I was a bit perplexed by the thunderous, riotous applause that greeted these seemingly minor in-game tweaks, but I suppose that as an outsider that’s kind of the point.

“We’ve created this virtual world, this digital universe where people can go and really do whatever they want,” Lander tells me. “It’s supposed to be a world. It has good people, it has bad people. Violence. It has altruism, it has politics. EVE has all of these things.”

If EVE is a virtual world, Fanfest lets me know I’m a tourist there too.

Equal parts celebration, pilgrimage, and bacchanal, Fanfest is an annual event devoted originally to all things EVE Online, but the festival has increasingly expanded to cover CCP’s other offerings. Attendees this year hear about the upcoming free-to-play first-person shooter Dust 514 and the Vampire: The Masquerade-based MMO World of Darkness. It’s a place for fans to gather and attend panel and roundtable discussions, but the celebration is also a chance to rub shoulders with CCP’s various development teams during private dinners, charity poker tournaments, and the aforementioned pub crawl.

Fanfest 2013 was reportedly the largest one to date, which reflects not only EVE Online’s steady growth but also the heightened excitement surrounding the game’s 10th anniversary this year. “I thought it would be fun,” a Canadian EVE player named John tells me. “It’s EVE’s 10-year. Everybody’s talking about it.”

John is a member of Surely You’re Joking, an Alliance that specializes in exploiting EVE’s wormhole mechanics. “Another SYJ member was coming as well, so we thought we’d meet up, have fun. And drink.”

“I’ve never been to Iceland before,” says Scott, another EVE player, but from the opposite end of North America: Mississippi. “You play this game for long enough, all you hear about is Iceland. It’s made in Iceland, all the developers are here. A lot of people talk about it.”

“A lot of people” is many of EVE Online’s 500,000 monthly subscribers. That number looks modest when pitted against World of Warcraft’s multiple millions, but EVE—and CCP along with it—has grown steadily since its launch in 2003. CCP generated $65 million in 2012. According to chief marketing officer David Reid, that's enough to bankroll EVE’s ongoing expansions as well as development on Dust 514 and World of Darkness.

“EVE is a very successful game,” Thor Gunnarsson, the vice-president of business development at CCP, tells me. “At least from a business perspective, it is certainly an outlier or an exception to the rule in the MMO space. [With most MMOs], you create a game, launch it, have your big opening weekend, hit your big plateau, and then manage the fall-off.”

EVE Online’s sustained success and popularity can be attributed to a mix of intricate, open systems that allow equally intricate social structures. Players band together to form corporations, multiple corporations form alliances, and multiple alliances form coalitions.

Lander calls it “the infernal machine… You have to harvest things to build things to blow them up. But you need reasons to do those things. It’s about creating those great, big, grand things which groups of people can achieve.”

The trick, “the most manipulative, sort of Machiavellian thing we ever did,” Lander says, was to host the entire game on just one server. Named “Tranquility,” CCP’s massive server is located in London and operates all of EVE Online and Dust 514. “If you have a single universe … there’s no duplicate of it anywhere else. Somebody has to be there to be a part of it,” he explains. “What I’ve done can then be persistent, and now we have a history in our world.”

“There was a corporation called M0o around 10 years ago, 2003,” Lander begins. M0o was one of the game’s earliest and most ruthless groups, notorious for squatting on interstellar bottlenecks and pirating anyone and everyone who came through. The group didn’t last long, however—they disbanded about eight years ago.

“But everybody knows about them,” Lander says. “People still talk about systems where M0o had set up camp… for those people who knew them, that were destroyed by them, it had great meaning. They wear it like a badge of honor.”

Lander continues, regaling me with the story of Chribba, a player that “has never done a bad thing in EVE, since day one.” Chribba’s claim to fame is his elaborate Veldspar mining operation. Veldspar is very common and relatively inexpensive. Chribba made, and continues to make, his fortune by acting as a third-party arbiter and escrow holder. “He’s got a reputation for doing good things in the community,” Lander explains. “He’s got a reputation that is absolutely crystal.”

These types of player-driven stories have a way of propagating through the EVE community in local, in-client chat rooms, private corporation- and alliance-governed forums, and fan sites. Collectively they form EVE’s shared history, from the halcyon days of the Great War to present-day tensions between the game’s massive coalitions.

Steve Shultz is an EVE player from the Twin Cities, a rookie fleet commander in an alliance called Gentleman’s Agreement. He hated EVE Online for the first six months he played it and was prepared to quit until he read an account of an alliance called Gents. This group systematically dismantled a rival alliance in a region called Vale of the Silent.

“I started reading about what they did,” he tells me. “They scouted it out, they ransomed capital ships, they had them bubbled and locked down.” Gents set up three evacuation routes and charged a toll, and slaughtered anyone stubborn enough to resist. “They fail-cascaded that alliance,” Shultz enthuses. “I decided that’s something I wanted to be a part of.”

That desire to take part in and shape EVE’s collective history creates meaning for people, according to Lander. “If things are meaningful, people are prepared to put their own price on it. This stuff matters, and it’s why people will continue to come back.”

Scott, the player from Mississippi, has spent most of his career as a member of the United States Coast Guard. He’s a staff officer supporting the Coast Guard’s criminal investigators. “We move around all the time,” he tells me. “In the last 13 years, I’ve lived in 12 different places. So you have temporary friendships, temporary connections.

“But every time I move, the same people that I talk to in-game … wherever I go, they’re still the same people,” he finishes. “I can honestly say that I have friends in the Netherlands. I have friends in the UK. I’ve got friends in Canada. I’ve never met them before, but I talk to them four or five times a week.” Scott has been playing EVE Online since 2006.

EVE Online’s impact on the real world manifests in other ways. Perhaps the most exciting news from the event for fans was CCP’s announcement that the True Stories initiative—a compendium of player-submitted schemes, plots, and wars—would be the foundation for a set of transmedia projects. This initiative includes a Dark Horse-published comic series and a TV show helmed by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur.

“We’ve taken some expensive lunches in Hollywood over the years, but we never found the right approach,” Gunnarsson tells me when asked about the TV series. “Then we had this breakthrough moment. Why don’t we tell the true stories of the players? Why make some shit up when you’ve got some of the most awe-inspiring stories of friendship and betrayal that have happened in the industry?”

One such story might belong to Steve Shultz, the EVE player from Minnesota. High-level politics and diplomacy aren’t interesting to him—“I’m not that kind of player,” he says. “I’m not a schemer”—but he has fond memories of his first few excursions with the Gents alliance.

“We lived in Cloud Ring. It’s four big pipes, like a square,” he explains. “You have an out on each corner. People come into these pipes and you trap them. And you kill them.” He’s grinning by now. “And what’s hilarious is that you’ll kill three or four, and they’ll take off, but you’ve got scouts everywhere and you’re watching them the whole time.”

“Then you kill them again. And we can do this for an hour or two until there’s none left.” Shultz’s story ends on a sympathetic note: “I can only imagine what that would be like, to be one of them. It’s one of those things where you just have to keep moving forward. What else are you going to do?”

Alliances like Gents are full of brutal players, in a sense. It's fitting for a brutal game developed in a harsh, primeval country of glaciers, volcanoes, sulfuric geysers, and impromptu snowstorms. But the Iceland I saw is also breathtakingly beautiful, and even at its rowdiest, Reykjavik—and Fanfest—feels cozy, intimate, and comfortable.

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89 Reader Comments

In effect, it is about building Sandcastles. In this case, Space Sandcastles with Laser beams. That's the appeal of EVE Online. And I totally get why you might not enjoy it. But in EVE, Sandcastles need sand to be built, and you can't make sand from the corpses of your enemies. You can use the sand from their sandcastles though.

There's far too many people in this thread who have no idea what they are talking about, or have made some really stupid assumptions with regards to EVE Online.

Jerks and assholes abound in every single online game ever. EVE's flow of vitriol and violence pales in comparison to some of the things i've read, listened to, and seen in other MMO's and FPS games. Xbox Live is a cesspool of bigotry, racism, and crudeness. World of Warcraft is host to some of the most degenerate examples of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I've witnessed some of the most incredible floods of vitriol in my life from League of Legends, Vindictus, and even SW:TOR.

In the seven years i've been playing EVE Online, I've seen no indication that the game attracts worse (or better) gamers than any other online game out there.

Before you simply assume that EVE is the internet gaming's equivalent of Mos Eisley Spaceport, try reading some decent reviews of the game, or better yet play the game for yourself. If you can get past the interface, which is a challenge, there's a surprising amount to offer.

If you're interested in this game, EVE online has a buddy referral program whereby if you use a buddy link you get 21 days free trial instead of just 14. Here's the link: https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?inv ... tion=buddyYou also get a limited edition super battlecruiser if you use this link and subscribe before the end of the month.Enjoy and Welcome to EVE!

Also, do bear in mind I'm also the sort of person who totally loves Dwarf Fortress (and its madness), and does things like make the Tower of Sauron in Minecraft, or builds killer machines in Garry's Mod. And even I've been on/off with playing on EVE. But unlike other MMOs, I keep returning to it. I can't really say the same to a lot of different games. I would totally play a fantasy equivalent of EVE Online though, if I could get the same depth of empire building/metagame/open world/economy.

Eve players may, in game, act like complete bastards to people who aren't on their side. But out of game? We're great people.

There were comments from some of the people who were working at the venue for Fanfest, and the various pubs and clubs round the city, that we were some of the politest and most helpful people they'd had to deal with.

And these are the /hardcore/ players. The ones who go to a totally different country to see their friends, and talk to the developers of the game that they love.

It's also far from uncommon for people who go out to try and learn PvP, to have their losses refunded by the people that blew them up. As long as they're not idiots and rage about it.

I stopped playing Eve in 2011 when I stopped playing video games all together. I'm glad to be back in the real world. Nothing against gamers, enjoy, just not for me after 37 years of playing video games.

You can play eve without paying anything, you just need to be generating enough isk to afford a monthly plex. Industrialists run whole swarms of production alts using this scheme.

To expand on this: CCP allows players to "purchase" ingame money by buying a 60 day Game Time Card which can then be redeemed or split into 2 PLEX (each is a 30 day subscription). A PLEX is an ingame item tradeable on the robust ingame market.

You can:Pay real money to avoid grinding in games orPay ingame money to avoid spending cash orPay the subscription fee

Paying for your subscription using ingame money requires quite a bit of dull grinding or time spent staring at spreadsheets. There are enough people who'd rather not grind or stare at spreadsheets to make it possible for those of us who don't pay subscription fees able to play. Eve avoids the usual F2P "gold ammo/overpowered subscriber" problems a lot of games have with this balancing act.

why no photos of the event? It seems kind of odd to cover an event and not take a camera.

Large groups of nerds tend to look alike and there isn't a culture of cosplay in Eve. I mean, there's the guy who went on a diet and started lifting weights to look like his avatar but that's about the extent of it.

In the seven years i've been playing EVE Online, I've seen no indication that the game attracts worse (or better) gamers than any other online game out there.

Try "Lord of the Rings Online", if you want to see what an online game's community can be. The pleasantest I've yet come across in an online game, and I've tried many. Of course, the PvP systems in it are also quite weak, and I think this is a large part of the reason that it has the community it has -- players interested mainly in affecting other players lose interest, and move on. I also had a pretty good, if not as robust, experience in "Spiral Knights" as well, back when it launched and again had few to no PvP systems, which I think has now changed.

If they were to dedicate the single-mindedness, commitment, and countless hours that they invest in the game into real world activities then they would be able to achieve great things. As it is, they accomplish very little that's of tangible value.

Holding a Fanfest for Eve seems a little perverse. We shouldn't be celebrating the loss of human potential.

You seem to be under the false assumption that if one form of entertainment were non-existent people would choose to dedicate their time to productive activities instead of simply choosing or coming up with another form of entertainment.

If they were to dedicate the single-mindedness, commitment, and countless hours that they invest in the game into real world activities then they would be able to achieve great things. As it is, they accomplish very little that's of tangible value.

Holding a Fanfest for Eve seems a little perverse. We shouldn't be celebrating the loss of human potential.

You seem to be under the false assumption that if one form of entertainment were non-existent people would choose to dedicate their time to productive activities instead of simply choosing or coming up with another form of entertainment.

"Play" is a real world activity to the point it's even built into animals. Play allows for try and failure as well as success, without the dire consequences that sometimes result from "real world" activities.

If they were to dedicate the single-mindedness, commitment, and countless hours that they invest in the game into real world activities then they would be able to achieve great things. As it is, they accomplish very little that's of tangible value.

Holding a Fanfest for Eve seems a little perverse. We shouldn't be celebrating the loss of human potential.

Don't worry guys, I'll handle this

Edit: I'm sorry I can't leave this guy alone, I need to say more.

You know all these people who are squandering their existence on EVE ( /game of choice)?You know those people who are teachers, students, coast guards, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, counselors, police officers, scientists, farmers, politicians, programmers, construction workers, military, truck drivers, grocery clerks, veterinarians, parents?You know all those people whose endless toil make the effing world go around day in day out?You know all those people, who are entitled to something that makes them happy, when it's the end of the day and they can take a break from making the world happen?

If they were to dedicate the single-mindedness, commitment, and countless hours that they invest in the game into real world activities then they would be able to achieve great things. As it is, they accomplish very little that's of tangible value.

Holding a Fanfest for Eve seems a little perverse. We shouldn't be celebrating the loss of human potential.

Don't worry guys, I'll handle this

Edit: I'm sorry I can't leave this guy alone, I need to say more.

You know all these people who are squandering their existence on EVE ( /game of choice)?You know those people who are teachers, students, coast guards, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, counselors, police officers, scientists, farmers, politicians, programmers, construction workers, military, truck drivers, grocery clerks, veterinarians, parents?You know all those people whose endless toil make the effing world go around day in day out?You know all those people, who are entitled to something that makes them happy, when it's the end of the day and they can take a break from making the world happen?

Didn't think so.

Not to mention Sean Smith, who died for his country. ghub2005 can suck on his preconceptions. I played EVE while going through college. 3.7 GPA, finished a 4 year in 3 years.

If they were to dedicate the single-mindedness, commitment, and countless hours that they invest in the game into real world activities then they would be able to achieve great things. As it is, they accomplish very little that's of tangible value.

Holding a Fanfest for Eve seems a little perverse. We shouldn't be celebrating the loss of human potential.

Don't worry guys, I'll handle this

Edit: I'm sorry I can't leave this guy alone, I need to say more.

You know all these people who are squandering their existence on EVE ( /game of choice)?You know those people who are teachers, students, coast guards, blah blah blah.

*sigh* I think the poster knows about the Coast Guard. Perhaps he was asking, you know...rhetorically...why humanity has such a long history of self-medication (including entertainment, sports, games and intoxicants).

All that said, the awfulness is actually a conscious design decision, and for surprising reasons. About a year ago, I heard an interview with EVE developers on BBC World Service where they admitted that they are creating a game to attract awful people and keep them playing. Money quote: "We want to suck all the evil out of the real world and into our game."

The only real salient point in the thread. "Evil" is a design point. You can consider it fun or not, realistic or not, and play the game or not. But there it is.

There's far too many people in this thread who have no idea what they are talking about, or have made some really stupid assumptions with regards to EVE Online.

Jerks and assholes abound in every single online game ever. EVE's flow of vitriol and violence pales in comparison to some of the things i've read, listened to, and seen in other MMO's and FPS games. Xbox Live is a cesspool of bigotry, racism, and crudeness. World of Warcraft is host to some of the most degenerate examples of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I've witnessed some of the most incredible floods of vitriol in my life from League of Legends, Vindictus, and even SW:TOR.

Yes but EVE disproportionately rewards the douchey behavior towards the benevolent. And that much is true.

Get too trollish in SWTOR you can easily be banned. Do the same in EVE and you just stole someone else's hard earned stuff.

Here's to Vile_Rat. As far as the two downers are concerned: Many Eve players lead happy, productive lives, make enough to support family and use Eve for which it was intended: A break from the everyday. True, there will be addicts (though I've yet to see an news item of someone dying from too much in-game time, like Starcraft), but most of us just play to play. Because we may devote a couple hours a week, doesn't mean we're squandering our potential. And it can't all be about accumulation of stuff, status and all the other materialistic shit society tries to tell us we need.

I myself have run an online business, had jobs, got married and still managed to keep Eve in perspective. And my wife doesn't begrudge any time I might spend on it, because she knows she comes first.

TL:DR version: Take your pedantic attitude and bother some other thread.

Notify me when they solve blobbing problem. I might lact imagination but I don't see any other solution than to make ship position something that actually matters - no more "shoot the enemy through allies".

I hate this argument against EVE, precisely because it's one of the few games where numbers do not assure victory in battle. If you want to avoid large-scale battles entirely, there are a number of good regions in EVE for this (e.g. Outer Ring, Syndicate, worm holes). As in real life, numbers certainly help, and often significantly, but EVE is a game where the biggest battalions do not always win.

There's far too many people in this thread who have no idea what they are talking about, or have made some really stupid assumptions with regards to EVE Online.

Jerks and assholes abound in every single online game ever. EVE's flow of vitriol and violence pales in comparison to some of the things i've read, listened to, and seen in other MMO's and FPS games. Xbox Live is a cesspool of bigotry, racism, and crudeness. World of Warcraft is host to some of the most degenerate examples of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I've witnessed some of the most incredible floods of vitriol in my life from League of Legends, Vindictus, and even SW:TOR.

Yes but EVE disproportionately rewards the douchey behavior towards the benevolent. And that much is true.

Get too trollish in SWTOR you can easily be banned. Do the same in EVE and you just stole someone else's hard earned stuff.

There's far too many people in this thread who have no idea what they are talking about, or have made some really stupid assumptions with regards to EVE Online.

Jerks and assholes abound in every single online game ever. EVE's flow of vitriol and violence pales in comparison to some of the things i've read, listened to, and seen in other MMO's and FPS games. Xbox Live is a cesspool of bigotry, racism, and crudeness. World of Warcraft is host to some of the most degenerate examples of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I've witnessed some of the most incredible floods of vitriol in my life from League of Legends, Vindictus, and even SW:TOR.

Yes but EVE disproportionately rewards the douchey behavior towards the benevolent. And that much is true.

Get too trollish in SWTOR you can easily be banned. Do the same in EVE and you just stole someone else's hard earned stuff.

It doesn't even really reward douchey behavior. The most successful alliance in EVE is predicated on space communism. You *can* make a living being an ass, you will never become successful on the scale of Goons or TEST if you treat your members like crap. Case study, read up on BOB and Mercenary Coalition. BOB treated MC like crap, MC left, BOB died.

Honestly, EVE is something that I might actually enjoy. But EVE is a non-starter because it is not only populated by assholes, the system itself encourages this behavior. It's like a playground populated almost entirely by bullies.

It's like 4chan with better graphics. It's OK to visit but to stay would encourage personality (if not brain) damage. There is a very thin brown line between being a free individual and being an asshole, and people just slide right over it. Subtlety is not a common trait it seems.

It's the lure of anonymity. We all know it's poisonous, but we wouldn't like to let go of our brass shield against tyranny and prejudice. Again, subtlety in its use is sorely lacking.

Just curious, what happens when you "die" in the game, say from someone sneak attacking you? You lose the items you were carrying and respawn somewhere or lose everything?

The game sounds pretty interesting but also seems like it would require a huge learning curve and many hours to get anywhere, since there are others who've been building up their characters/spacecrafts for years.

Also is there a skill tree, do you build your character around a certain "class" or is everyone essentially the same? Sorry could probably find the answers on the forum but it looks like there's a lot of EVE players on here. Thanks.

Just curious, what happens when you "die" in the game, say from someone sneak attacking you? You lose the items you were carrying and respawn somewhere or lose everything?

The game sounds pretty interesting but also seems like it would require a huge learning curve and many hours to get anywhere, since there are others who've been building up their characters/spacecrafts for years.

Also is there a skill tree, do you build your character around a certain "class" or is everyone essentially the same? Sorry could probably find the answers on the forum but it looks like there's a lot of EVE players on here. Thanks.

When you die, you lose the ship you were in, any modules on that ship, and anything in your cargohold (some of these items can be recovered from your wreck, but your murderers will likely get them first), and if you're not careful, you lose your escape pod, which can contain valuable attribute boosters.

The way the skills are structured, newer players without too much time in the game can stand up well to older players. They'll still beat you with experience, but that's part of the learning curve, and can be mitigated by finding a good corp.

There is a bit of a skill tree, and specialization will make you really good at one thing. That said, it isn't that hard to become competent in most areas of the game with a little work and a lot of reading.

There's far too many people in this thread who have no idea what they are talking about, or have made some really stupid assumptions with regards to EVE Online.

Jerks and assholes abound in every single online game ever. EVE's flow of vitriol and violence pales in comparison to some of the things i've read, listened to, and seen in other MMO's and FPS games. Xbox Live is a cesspool of bigotry, racism, and crudeness. World of Warcraft is host to some of the most degenerate examples of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I've witnessed some of the most incredible floods of vitriol in my life from League of Legends, Vindictus, and even SW:TOR.

Yes but EVE disproportionately rewards the douchey behavior towards the benevolent. And that much is true.

Get too trollish in SWTOR you can easily be banned. Do the same in EVE and you just stole someone else's hard earned stuff.

It doesn't even really reward douchey behavior. The most successful alliance in EVE is predicated on space communism. You *can* make a living being an ass, you will never become successful on the scale of Goons or TEST if you treat your members like crap. Case study, read up on BOB and Mercenary Coalition. BOB treated MC like crap, MC left, BOB died.

By that logic the Crips and Bloods weren't douchey because they treated other members of their gangs well. You're still being an ass hat to everyone else around you.

There's far too many people in this thread who have no idea what they are talking about, or have made some really stupid assumptions with regards to EVE Online.

Jerks and assholes abound in every single online game ever. EVE's flow of vitriol and violence pales in comparison to some of the things i've read, listened to, and seen in other MMO's and FPS games. Xbox Live is a cesspool of bigotry, racism, and crudeness. World of Warcraft is host to some of the most degenerate examples of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I've witnessed some of the most incredible floods of vitriol in my life from League of Legends, Vindictus, and even SW:TOR.

Yes but EVE disproportionately rewards the douchey behavior towards the benevolent. And that much is true.

Get too trollish in SWTOR you can easily be banned. Do the same in EVE and you just stole someone else's hard earned stuff.

It doesn't even really reward douchey behavior. The most successful alliance in EVE is predicated on space communism. You *can* make a living being an ass, you will never become successful on the scale of Goons or TEST if you treat your members like crap. Case study, read up on BOB and Mercenary Coalition. BOB treated MC like crap, MC left, BOB died.

By that logic the Crips and Bloods weren't douchey because they treated other members of their gangs well. You're still being an ass hat to everyone else around you.

By your logic, socialistic countries are also terrible because they care for their citizens more than the citizens of other nations.

No systems in the game "promote douchebaggery," this is human nature at its most basic. EVE has no rules. EVE is a game about combat, strategy, and politics. All the things that result from it are regular people in conflict in this game.

I actually think that some of the design choices do promote a shoot first paranoia. Because it's extremely difficult to defend anything except by killing the other guy first, and he who shoots first is at an advantage, I think that tends to promote a shoot-first-ask-questions-later approach to interactions between strangers.

I fly with an NRDS corp that hunts down and shoots pirates. We usually let them know before hand "Hey, we've seen you shooting innocent haulers, so we're setting you red, see you in space."

Some of the pirates are cool, and I've shared beer with them at FanFest; After all, we give each other targets.

Others of them whine "Eve is a sandbox, we can do what we want, so stop hassling us for shooting people" - when we reply "yes, and we can do what we want, and what we want to do is shoot you..." they still feel like we're picking on them somehow.

I thought EVE was boring. I tried the 14-day trial and did nothing but mine all day. I suppose I could've joined a coalition or guild or gang or whatever you call them, but given my experience playing City of Heroes and other MMO's, most of these groups don't do anything, so this "strength in numbers" mantra didn't mean shit to me.

Eventually, some asshole blew up my ship and I uninstalled the game. I was not impressed at all.

I thought EVE was boring. I tried the 14-day trial and did nothing but mine all day. I suppose I could've joined a coalition or guild or gang or whatever you call them, but given my experience playing City of Heroes and other MMO's, most of these groups don't do anything, so this "strength in numbers" mantra didn't mean shit to me.

Eventually, some asshole blew up my ship and I uninstalled the game. I was not impressed at all.

That's where you went wrong, you definitely need to join a corp. Some of them do jack crap, most of them are highly invested in their members.

I hate EVE. I've been playing since 2009 and it pisses me off. I'm just over 60 million SP on my main, and sold an Alt for 10 billion ISK recently. I got down to having only 1 account open. I don't think I'll quit again honestly.

I'm a freelancer in EVE currently. Joined a militia for more pewpew, but for the last couple of months I mainly dedicated myself to shooting criminals in the Amarr-Jita pipe, which isn't too much of a time sink. This kill last night was particularly satisfying:

Did you get a sense of how the original EVE players felt about Dust 514? I'm really intrigued by the concept and am curious if they are going to embrace it or shun it..

As a passionate EVE Player and a casual DUST player (I play a couple games a month), I have no feelings on it right now. However, there is a huge 'but'. The integration hasn't been fully implemented yet, and where it has started integrating has just been in one small region of space I have nothing to do with. Depending on how much of a force they become, I could easily hate it or love it. EVE is about attempting to balance things. If DUST gets too much influence, I'd imagine the long-term space dwellers would get very upset. If it gets too little, it ceases to become a factor, and that would be a shame. DUST has real potential to be something incredibly unique, and I hope it can actualize on that without alienating huge amounts of the EVE player base.

Heh, I looked into Eve for a bit a few years ago, but it seemed to me that I would have to invest a tremendous amount of time in it and the most I could really aspire to was to become a cog in some corporate machine. I already have a job, I didn't really need a second one.

I admit I didn't get very far, but the combat I did see seemed a bit boring as well. Maybe it's different/better with more advanced ships, but it seemed like "toggle weapons on, wait for the other guy to explode". Pretty much the opposite of engaging gameplay.

Did you get a sense of how the original EVE players felt about Dust 514? I'm really intrigued by the concept and am curious if they are going to embrace it or shun it..

As a passionate EVE Player and a casual DUST player (I play a couple games a month), I have no feelings on it right now. However, there is a huge 'but'. The integration hasn't been fully implemented yet, and where it has started integrating has just been in one small region of space I have nothing to do with. Depending on how much of a force they become, I could easily hate it or love it. EVE is about attempting to balance things. If DUST gets too much influence, I'd imagine the long-term space dwellers would get very upset. If it gets too little, it ceases to become a factor, and that would be a shame. DUST has real potential to be something incredibly unique, and I hope it can actualize on that without alienating huge amounts of the EVE player base.

Thanks. I noticed it being promoted the other day on PSN when I went to watch Netflix. I've always liked the concept of EVE, but don't have the time or patience to stick with the full game. Being able to become a hired gun, working with a team/corp that has more at stake than just their K/D, that I could pick up casually on rainy days here and there sounds more my speed. I've grown tired of Battlefield for my occasional FPS play, but didn't want to start getting invested in a futile endeavor. I may have to give it a download this week.